As recently as this four posts ago, I posted an update proudly sharing how I had conquered the English-Spanish tree/course in Duolingo. Yet by the very next day, Duolingo had apparently updated the course — something they almost never do. Okay, good news: extra material to learn to take me to the next level. But the bad news: they updated the course with a lot of new material. Just check out the pictures below. I am miles from completing the tree! Waaa. I feel like someone who’s been retroactively stripped of my gold medal through no fault of my own (think: Usain Bolt’s third Olympic gold for the 4x100m relay; yes, that is an exactly analogous situation!)

I’ve finished my thirdDuolingo tree! Well done me. This time, I finished the English language for Spanish speakers tree. I clearly already speak English, but having previously completed the Spanish for English speakers course, it seemed like a natural next step. As it happens, I have learnt things and been tested in ways that didn’t happen doing the Spanish for English speakers course. For that reason, I would recommend everyone to do this “reverse tree”.

So, what are the next steps?

Get the Spa-Eng tree golden and keep it golden! And keep my Eng-Spa and English-Swedish trees golden, too!

Spend more time doing the Duolingo Eng-Spa, Spa-Eng, and Eng-Swe courses on Tinycards and on Memrise.

These three steps should last me till the Summer or thereabouts. Upon which I will need to reassess again. Probably (4) do a language exchange, (5) start studying more closely to the DELE and Swedex curriculums, (6) think about enrolling on a course at the Cervantes Institute.